Unprecedented Accuracy & Performance Control of Micro/Nano Systems

MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems)

MEMS are devices with micrometer-size components that can sense or actuate. They are commonly used as tiny gyros or filters in cell phones, accelerometers in cars, digital light reflectors in image projectors, sensors in robotics, sensors in biomedical for applications, etc.

Since the advent of microtechnologies it has been difficult to accurately and comprehensively characterize MEMS due to their small size. Because of process variations, no two MEMS have been shown to behave identically. MEMS are precise but inaccurate. Sugarcube Systems is addressing these difficult challenges.

Our Unique Innovations:

How we're advancing the field of microsystems: Our CAD technology optimizes designs to be least sensitive to process variations; our metrology technology is accurate, comprehensive, and enables self-calibration; and our performance-control technology enables devices to change their effective mass, damping, and stiffness on demand.

EMM - Electro Micro Metrology

EMM is the only technology capable of true self-measurement for MEMS. EMM enables MEMS to comprehensively and autonomously measure their own geometric, dynamic, and material properties without in-factory calibration or external references. Due to the physics of scaling, the EMM only becomes applicable at the micro scale or below. EMM is expected to lead to improved sensing accuracy by several orders.

PODMEMS - Performance-On-Demand MEMS

PODMEMS is the only technology capable of changing the apparent mass, damping, and stiffness of MEMS. Unlike traditional electronic tuning which changes applied driving frequency upon a change in stiffness due to a change in temperature, PODMEMS devices are able to maintain a constant effective stiffness in the face of temperature fluctuations. Or PODMEMS can increase or decrease their damping behavior on demand. PODMEMS is expected to increase the utility of MEMS beyond current mechanical limitations.

CAD - Computer Aided Design & Engineering

Unique advances in CAD include the ability to optimize a microdevice to be least-sensitive to process variations, the ability to create novel configurations that achieve desired performance specifications through genetic algorithms, and single-operation combinatorial layout arrays.

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